Overview:
Board: square 6' x 4'
Mission: Capture and Control
Deployment: Spearhead (Table Quarters)
Terrain: A number of woodland areas coupled with two brick ruins.
Daemons Army List:
HQ: Khorne herald on a juggernaut with blessings of the blood god (110)
Troops 1: 8 Bloodletters (128)
Troops 2: 8 Bloodletters (128)
Troops 3: 10 Plaguebearers with icon and instrument (180)
Troops 4: 9 Horrors with icon, bolt of Tzeentch and instrument (193)
Heavy Support 1: Daemon Prince with iron hide and daemonic gaze (130)
Heavy Support 2: Daemon Prince with iron hide and daemonic gaze (130)
First Wave: Herald with Bloodletters 1, horrors, daemon prince
Secondary Wave: Bloodletters 2, plaguebearers, daemon prince
Tyranids Army List:
HQ: Flying Hive Tyrant with lash whip, bonesword and venom cannon, toxic miasma (166)
Elites 1: Warrior Brood - 3 warriors with death spitters and rending claws (84)
Elites 2: Warrior Brood - 3 warriors with death spitters and rending claws (84)Troops: 10 Genestealers with feeder tendrils and scuttling (200)
Troops: 22 Gaunts with fleshborers (132)
Troops: 20 Hormagaunts with initiative adrenal glands (220)
Heavy Support: 2 Zoanthropes with warp blast (110)
Pre-game and set-up:
The Tyranid player reserves the genestealers. Presumably, they're to come on and try to contest (or control) my home objective later on in the game. Meanwhile, I roll and see that my chosen first wave IS going to be the first wave. I place my home objective in cover, but otherwise as close to my opponents as I can I probably should have gone much closer. My opponent has his deep within his table quarter. Shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'm more bothered by the sheer number of miniatures I'm seeing across the table. They're nicely spaced out as well even though I don't have template weapons.
My opponent elects to go first having won the die roll. That makes me happy.
Turn 1.
The hormagaunts, gaunts, flyrant and one brood of warriors comes forward. Everything else stays put.
My bloodletters (with herald) arrive and scatter toward the enemy lines. I see that as fortunate as I can now make a turn 2 assault with these guys. My horrors land bang on target and have a wonderful line of sight to the hormagaunts. My daemon prince scatters sideways from where I intended him to be, but still has line of sight for daemonic gaze. Here's the situation sketched below:
The two "X"s are the objective markers, the dark rectangles are ruins and the dark green circles are woodland areas. Firstly, I have the daemon prince open fire on the warrior brood infront of him. With some lucky rolling and poor saving throws, each warrior is already down to 1 wound each. My bloodletters run and space themselves out, expecting some incoming warpblasts next turn. Meanwhile, the horrors let rip on the hormagaunts that are out in the open. They reduce their numbers from 20 down to 9 immediately - again some lucky rolling on my part there.
Turn 2.
The genestealers are still scuttling around and don't show up. The flyrant leaps in to the ruins, the hormagaunts come forward, as does the warrior brood nearest to the daemon prince along with the gaunts.
The flyrant causes one horror to die from its venom cannon. The bloodletters suffer two casualties from the gaunts, and the daemon prince is reduced to its last wound from a combination of both broods to warriors and the zoanthropes.
Now here's a mistake. Having landed in the ruins, the flyrant has to take a difficult terrain test to charge and can only travel 1 inch! It doesn't make the horrors! The hormagaunts easily make the horrors, though. The gaunts charge the bloodletters and the warrior brood charges the daemon prince easily enough through the woodland.
As the flyrant watches on, the hormagaunts tear in to the horrors, inflicting 3 further casualties and reducing them down to 5. The remaining horrors cause 3 hormagaunt casualties in return. It would ordinarily be a draw, but thanks to the instrument, the horrors have won! Still in synapse range, the remaining hormagaunts stay put.
Meanwhile, the daemon prince dispatches the (already wounded) warrior brood with graceful ease. The bloodletter casualties are racking up though: 4 more dead from the gaunts. But since they're at equal initiative with the bloodletters, they strike back hard: 9 dead gaunts. There are two bloodletters left, alongside the herald, but 12 gaunts.
In my turn, the plaguebearers and second mob of bloodletters decide to show up. I deepstrike the plaguebearers near to my "home" objective and run them in to cover during the shooting phase. Meanwhile, the second lot of bloodletters deep strike off the horror's icon to be close to their other brethren. Much like the plaguebearers, they also run during shooting. The daemon prince shoots at the flyrant, causing 1 wound.
In the subsequent melee, my herald readily dispatches 4 gaunts without breaking a sweat (do daemons sweat?). The gaunts fail to cause any wounds on my herald in exchange, leaving the other bloodletters to take the skulls of several of the remaining gaunts. There's now 5 gaunts left.
Although brutally injured by the hormagaunts, the horrors pass all but one saving throw and inflict 3 kills in exhange. This leaves 3 hormagaunts facing off 4 horrors.
Turn 3.
My opponent is determined to use the tyrant to control my home objective. I suggest to him that he might want to consider finishing the horrors off, but he's having none of it and flies toward the plaguebearers position. The genestealers still have not shown up though. In the shooting phase, the zoanthropes finish off my daemon prince with some choice blasts. The other warrior brood opens fire on the second squad of bloodletters. Most of the incoming blast templates scatter far and wide, but one hits and slays one of them. In the assault phase, the flyrant charges the plaguebearers. Here's the sitatuion now:
The flyrant kills one of the plaguebearers. My opponent realizes his mistake now as the plaguebearers, despite having only 1 attack each, can still wound the flyrant on a 4+. Three poisoned wounds later, the flyrant is hurting. Two save, so the flyrant has three wounds left. What might have been a drawn combat turns in to a plaguebearer victory with the instrument. The flyrant loses another wound.
The horrors, meanwhile win by 1 wound and cause a leadership test on the hormagaunts who are now outside of synapse range! The hormaguants are suddenly no more and the remaining two horrors look happy with themselves.
The herald also cleans up the remaining gaunts, leaving the bloodletters freed up.
Finally its my turn. My second daemon prince arrives and deepstrikes in next to the plaguebearer and flyrant melee. My hearld takes his remaining two bloodletters on a charge toward the zoanthropes. My second set of bloodletters know they'll be out of charge range if they follow, so I take a gamble and move them southward toward my home objective. The remaining horrors move in to the central ruins but are out of shooting range of anything.
Nothing to shoot, so it's charging time. The hearld rams in to the zoanthropes. Going first thanks to furious charge and having an extra attack means that the herald and bloodletters slaughter the zoanthropes in a heartbeat.
The flyrant is getting bogged down with these plaguebearers: two plaguebearers die but the flyrant is reduced to its final wound. One more plaguebearer goes back to the warp at combat resolution. There's still 6 of them left though. It should be sufficient, with a bit of luck... and maybe some help from the daemon prince that's lurking nearby.
Turn 4.
The genestealers make an entrance on the right hand side of the map and move toward my home objective. The warrior brood shoots the bloodletters that are headed their way and kills the remaining to bloodletters. The herald is still yet to receive a single wound.
Taking the initiative, the warriors charge the herald of Khorne. The hearald causes a healthy four wounds (two warriors left) and doesn't suffer anything in exhange! At my home objective, two more plaguebearers die. I fail to finish the job though.
In my turn, I charge the daemon prince in to the flyrant and move my bloodletters between the plaguebearers and genestealers. Those genestealers will have to come through the bloodletters to to contest my objective. I also move my horrors in to shooting range of the warrior brood, should my herald fail.
But I needn't have worried. The herald finishes the job readily and smugly sits himself next to the objective. The charging daemon prince also slays the flyrant.
At this point, there's only the genestealers left on the board. I control my home objective and am contesting my opponents. If the game extends to turn 6, my horrors could be in range to claim my the other objective as well. Seeing the bloodletters and daemon prince between the genestealers and the plaguebearers, my opponent graciously conceeds the game.
Result: Daemons win.
Evaluation.
The Khorne Herald was magnificent. Moreover, it is a very cheap HQ choice which leaves open more points for things like bloodletters. Plaguebearers once again proved their worth in objective holding. The horrors were lucky; very lucky.
The flyrant made a number of mistakes but I don't think it would have mattered too much if the flyrant had have finished off the horrors either. There were too many daemons with too many power weapons. The genestealers would have made it in to a different game had they been deployed next to the hormagaunts though.
Board: square 6' x 4'
Mission: Capture and Control
Deployment: Spearhead (Table Quarters)
Terrain: A number of woodland areas coupled with two brick ruins.
Daemons Army List:
HQ: Khorne herald on a juggernaut with blessings of the blood god (110)
Troops 1: 8 Bloodletters (128)
Troops 2: 8 Bloodletters (128)
Troops 3: 10 Plaguebearers with icon and instrument (180)
Troops 4: 9 Horrors with icon, bolt of Tzeentch and instrument (193)
Heavy Support 1: Daemon Prince with iron hide and daemonic gaze (130)
Heavy Support 2: Daemon Prince with iron hide and daemonic gaze (130)
First Wave: Herald with Bloodletters 1, horrors, daemon prince
Secondary Wave: Bloodletters 2, plaguebearers, daemon prince
Tyranids Army List:
HQ: Flying Hive Tyrant with lash whip, bonesword and venom cannon, toxic miasma (166)
Elites 1: Warrior Brood - 3 warriors with death spitters and rending claws (84)
Elites 2: Warrior Brood - 3 warriors with death spitters and rending claws (84)Troops: 10 Genestealers with feeder tendrils and scuttling (200)
Troops: 22 Gaunts with fleshborers (132)
Troops: 20 Hormagaunts with initiative adrenal glands (220)
Heavy Support: 2 Zoanthropes with warp blast (110)
Pre-game and set-up:
The Tyranid player reserves the genestealers. Presumably, they're to come on and try to contest (or control) my home objective later on in the game. Meanwhile, I roll and see that my chosen first wave IS going to be the first wave. I place my home objective in cover, but otherwise as close to my opponents as I can I probably should have gone much closer. My opponent has his deep within his table quarter. Shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'm more bothered by the sheer number of miniatures I'm seeing across the table. They're nicely spaced out as well even though I don't have template weapons.
My opponent elects to go first having won the die roll. That makes me happy.
Turn 1.
The hormagaunts, gaunts, flyrant and one brood of warriors comes forward. Everything else stays put.
My bloodletters (with herald) arrive and scatter toward the enemy lines. I see that as fortunate as I can now make a turn 2 assault with these guys. My horrors land bang on target and have a wonderful line of sight to the hormagaunts. My daemon prince scatters sideways from where I intended him to be, but still has line of sight for daemonic gaze. Here's the situation sketched below:
The two "X"s are the objective markers, the dark rectangles are ruins and the dark green circles are woodland areas. Firstly, I have the daemon prince open fire on the warrior brood infront of him. With some lucky rolling and poor saving throws, each warrior is already down to 1 wound each. My bloodletters run and space themselves out, expecting some incoming warpblasts next turn. Meanwhile, the horrors let rip on the hormagaunts that are out in the open. They reduce their numbers from 20 down to 9 immediately - again some lucky rolling on my part there.
Turn 2.
The genestealers are still scuttling around and don't show up. The flyrant leaps in to the ruins, the hormagaunts come forward, as does the warrior brood nearest to the daemon prince along with the gaunts.
The flyrant causes one horror to die from its venom cannon. The bloodletters suffer two casualties from the gaunts, and the daemon prince is reduced to its last wound from a combination of both broods to warriors and the zoanthropes.
Now here's a mistake. Having landed in the ruins, the flyrant has to take a difficult terrain test to charge and can only travel 1 inch! It doesn't make the horrors! The hormagaunts easily make the horrors, though. The gaunts charge the bloodletters and the warrior brood charges the daemon prince easily enough through the woodland.
As the flyrant watches on, the hormagaunts tear in to the horrors, inflicting 3 further casualties and reducing them down to 5. The remaining horrors cause 3 hormagaunt casualties in return. It would ordinarily be a draw, but thanks to the instrument, the horrors have won! Still in synapse range, the remaining hormagaunts stay put.
Meanwhile, the daemon prince dispatches the (already wounded) warrior brood with graceful ease. The bloodletter casualties are racking up though: 4 more dead from the gaunts. But since they're at equal initiative with the bloodletters, they strike back hard: 9 dead gaunts. There are two bloodletters left, alongside the herald, but 12 gaunts.
In my turn, the plaguebearers and second mob of bloodletters decide to show up. I deepstrike the plaguebearers near to my "home" objective and run them in to cover during the shooting phase. Meanwhile, the second lot of bloodletters deep strike off the horror's icon to be close to their other brethren. Much like the plaguebearers, they also run during shooting. The daemon prince shoots at the flyrant, causing 1 wound.
In the subsequent melee, my herald readily dispatches 4 gaunts without breaking a sweat (do daemons sweat?). The gaunts fail to cause any wounds on my herald in exchange, leaving the other bloodletters to take the skulls of several of the remaining gaunts. There's now 5 gaunts left.
Although brutally injured by the hormagaunts, the horrors pass all but one saving throw and inflict 3 kills in exhange. This leaves 3 hormagaunts facing off 4 horrors.
Turn 3.
My opponent is determined to use the tyrant to control my home objective. I suggest to him that he might want to consider finishing the horrors off, but he's having none of it and flies toward the plaguebearers position. The genestealers still have not shown up though. In the shooting phase, the zoanthropes finish off my daemon prince with some choice blasts. The other warrior brood opens fire on the second squad of bloodletters. Most of the incoming blast templates scatter far and wide, but one hits and slays one of them. In the assault phase, the flyrant charges the plaguebearers. Here's the sitatuion now:
The flyrant kills one of the plaguebearers. My opponent realizes his mistake now as the plaguebearers, despite having only 1 attack each, can still wound the flyrant on a 4+. Three poisoned wounds later, the flyrant is hurting. Two save, so the flyrant has three wounds left. What might have been a drawn combat turns in to a plaguebearer victory with the instrument. The flyrant loses another wound.
The horrors, meanwhile win by 1 wound and cause a leadership test on the hormagaunts who are now outside of synapse range! The hormaguants are suddenly no more and the remaining two horrors look happy with themselves.
The herald also cleans up the remaining gaunts, leaving the bloodletters freed up.
Finally its my turn. My second daemon prince arrives and deepstrikes in next to the plaguebearer and flyrant melee. My hearld takes his remaining two bloodletters on a charge toward the zoanthropes. My second set of bloodletters know they'll be out of charge range if they follow, so I take a gamble and move them southward toward my home objective. The remaining horrors move in to the central ruins but are out of shooting range of anything.
Nothing to shoot, so it's charging time. The hearld rams in to the zoanthropes. Going first thanks to furious charge and having an extra attack means that the herald and bloodletters slaughter the zoanthropes in a heartbeat.
The flyrant is getting bogged down with these plaguebearers: two plaguebearers die but the flyrant is reduced to its final wound. One more plaguebearer goes back to the warp at combat resolution. There's still 6 of them left though. It should be sufficient, with a bit of luck... and maybe some help from the daemon prince that's lurking nearby.
Turn 4.
The genestealers make an entrance on the right hand side of the map and move toward my home objective. The warrior brood shoots the bloodletters that are headed their way and kills the remaining to bloodletters. The herald is still yet to receive a single wound.
Taking the initiative, the warriors charge the herald of Khorne. The hearald causes a healthy four wounds (two warriors left) and doesn't suffer anything in exhange! At my home objective, two more plaguebearers die. I fail to finish the job though.
In my turn, I charge the daemon prince in to the flyrant and move my bloodletters between the plaguebearers and genestealers. Those genestealers will have to come through the bloodletters to to contest my objective. I also move my horrors in to shooting range of the warrior brood, should my herald fail.
But I needn't have worried. The herald finishes the job readily and smugly sits himself next to the objective. The charging daemon prince also slays the flyrant.
At this point, there's only the genestealers left on the board. I control my home objective and am contesting my opponents. If the game extends to turn 6, my horrors could be in range to claim my the other objective as well. Seeing the bloodletters and daemon prince between the genestealers and the plaguebearers, my opponent graciously conceeds the game.
Result: Daemons win.
Evaluation.
The Khorne Herald was magnificent. Moreover, it is a very cheap HQ choice which leaves open more points for things like bloodletters. Plaguebearers once again proved their worth in objective holding. The horrors were lucky; very lucky.
The flyrant made a number of mistakes but I don't think it would have mattered too much if the flyrant had have finished off the horrors either. There were too many daemons with too many power weapons. The genestealers would have made it in to a different game had they been deployed next to the hormagaunts though.
Thanks for the battle report, these help me understand the game a bit better.
ReplyDeleteAlthough i'm 3 games 0 wins, i'm getting better!
I have at least 3 comments:
ReplyDeleteTyranids all have move through cover so for the flyrant to only get a charge distance of 1 he would have had to roll 3 ones on three dice. Can happen but not that often.
Tyranids in synapse suffer no retreat wounds for being effectively fearless. I cannot tell if you applied these but would have turned many of the combats from long affairs to rapid wins for you.
If all the warriors in the brood are the same you cannot end up in a case of each warrior with 1 wound left. They take their saves as 1 group and remove whole models when possible even from successive shooting attacks. IE if you have 1 injured and 1 unwounded warrior and the unit takes 1 unsaved wound then the injured warrior is removed.
Great battle report! I've yet to face demons and it's interesting to see their tactics in play. They're totally a take it to the enemy army, huh?
ReplyDeleteScary!
Hi Guys - thanks for the comments!
ReplyDeleteEriochrome: yes - a triple 1 was rolled for cover - it certainly doesn't happen often!
For synapse, no retreat wounds were applied throughout.
On the last point - I think I was had due to not paying enough attention. Thank you very much for taking the time to point these out to me!! I'll be looking out for them much more in the future.